Caitlin knew the way into the abandoned plant. An alley off the street led to an open side door that had been used by squatters. Old soiled clothes littered the filthy floor, along with broken glass, blankets, syringes. Entire walls had been painted black, as if to simulate night.
We walked in astonished silence toward a great wall of windows, the sun pouring through, a waterfall of light. Outside, the vastness of the defunct tire plant stretched before us like a forgotten city: a maze of streets lined with two-story buildings, railroad tracks, even a garbage dump where torched tires melted under the sun. Yellow-and-black signs reading Hazardous Waste had been posted on the sides of buildings. Concrete rubble piled up everywhere, as if an earthquake had toppled whole structures, forcing the city’s inhabitants to flee.
We carried our cameras outside, into the maze. Caitlin and Mike held hands as we ducked under a barbed wire fence and walked along the train tracks. We pushed open an unlatched door, and our footsteps echoed inside a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with shipping containers. Dust hung in the air, catching the gauzy light.
No one spoke. I snapped a shot with my Nikon. “Day turns to dust,” I heard myself say, breaking the silence.
The warning signs had been posted everywhere. Uniroyal was a forbidden zone, the site a toxic waste–dumping site long before the hazards were even well understood.
We walked deeper into the maze of buildings, taking more pictures. Pools of putrid water had formed from all the spring rains, some of them full of trash and weeds. We wove around them, separating and coming back together, laughing out loud when one of us splashed through recklessly. Mike splattered mud on Hobey’s coat, and Hobey kicked a black leather boot into the water, soaking Mike.
“You asshole!” Mike shouted. He brushed the grime from his vest and arms. When the water had settled, a solid organic object—something dead—floated at his feet.
Hobey stopped laughing. “What the fuck.”
Caitlin walked closer and poked it with a stick, turning it over. “It’s a rat.” Her voice sounded hollow. She held up her camera and snapped the shutter.
“Jesus Christ,” said Mike, stepping out of the water.
I bent over to see it closer. The eyes were open and black, the body the size of a small cat. The fur rippled rhythmically, and I wondered if it might still be alive, but Caitlin’s sweater was rippling, too. Everything with texture was alive.
I imagined thousands of rats all around us, rambling through sewer pipes or thrashing their tails inside little holes in the ground. I’d read a book once about the apocalypse that said only rats and cockroaches would survive a nuclear winter. They’d proliferate and take over the earth for millions of years until new species evolved. Even now, I thought I could feel things crawling on me. I scratched my arms up and down until I’d begun to produce welts.
A door slammed from somewhere inside the plant, and the sound ricocheted off the buildings in the silence. We all looked at one another. Had it been the wind? Anything could happen in here, and no one outside would know. People were murdered in Detroit every day.
I looked behind us and realized I wasn’t sure how to navigate back out. “This is too weird,” I said.
We lit cigarettes and listened to each other’s labored breathing. Mike’s curls looked artificially red under the now poisonous sun. He scanned the outbuildings of the walled city. “We should go,” he said, his voice shaky.
Hobey put his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Relax, man. You’re just having a bad trip, hunh?”
But I’d had enough, too. “Let’s go back,” I said. “We get caught in here, and we’re screwed.”
“No shit,” said Caitlin, her pupils spheres of black velvet. She replaced the lens cap with a slender, jittery hand.
The magic had worn off, except for the bad kind. I thought I could feel the cockroaches under my clothes, could taste the radioactive particles on my tongue, like dirty pennies. And I suspected we weren’t alone in the plant.
We took off, sprinting across the railroad yard, but I stopped suddenly and turned around, taking a last look. The web of discarded streets and buildings went on forever. The rest of Detroit wasn’t far from being like this—every windowpane shattered, every door hanging from its rusted hinges. Life had left this place. I felt my legs running toward the distant sound of feet hitting ground. I went around some warehouses and ducked under the barbed wire fence where I knew my friends had been, their dust still suspended in the air. I saw them waiting for me in front of the main building. We threw open the door and raced through to the street.
We stood panting next to the car.
“Let’s have a beer,” said Hobey.